The processing of case markers in near-native Mexican

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Thursday, March 15: Poster Abstracts
The processing of case markers in near-native Mexican Spanish
Jill Jegerski (College of Staten Island, City University of New York)
jill.jegerski@csi.cuny.edu
Non-native sentence processing; Case markers; Self-paced reading; Mexican Spanish
1
The Shallow Structure Hypothesis claims that abstract and hierarchical elements of syntax are unavailable during
non-native sentence processing and that verb argument roles are instead assigned on the basis of semantics,
pragmatics, and general world knowledge. The present study tested this prediction by examining the non-native
processing of case markers in Spanish, where case markers are critical to comprehension because of flexible
word order.
A group of near-native speakers of Spanish (n = 23), all native English speakers residing in Mexico City, was
2
screened for native-like general proficiency and long-term residence (m = 14.08 years) in Spanish-speaking
countries. The processing behavior of this near-native experimental group was then compared to that of native
speakers of Mexican Spanish (n = 35) in a self-paced reading experiment with a phrase-by-phrase noncumulative display. Two sets of experimental stimuli tested the processing of differential object marking of direct
objects (20 items) and of double-object constructions with dative-marked indirect objects (20 items). As can be
seen in the examples in (1) and (2) below, the two conditions for each type of stimulus varied with regard to the
presence or absence of the appropriate case marker.
Reading time data for the two different stimulus types were analyzed separately. Mixed design ANOVAs and
follow-up t-tests by subject and by item revealed an immediate effect at the site of the case violation in the
differential object marking stimuli (Region 3), but only among the native speakers. The near-native participants
showed no such effect at any point in this first set of stimuli. With the double-object constructions, on the other
hand, both participant groups exhibited both an immediate effect at the point of the case violation (Region 4) and
a spillover/wrap-up effect on the subsequent/sentence-final region of the stimuli (Region 5). Thus, the non-native
participants in this study were sensitive to some violations of case marking, an outcome which contradicts the
Shallow Structure Hypothesis. Furthermore, the hypothesis cannot account for the interesting observation that
the non-native participants exhibited native-like sensitivity to violations of one type of case marking, yet were
unaffected by violations of another type of case marking. Alternative explanations include the pre-verbal clitic le
as a cue to look for a case marker and native language transfer from English.
(1)
a.
b.
Verónica \\ visita \\ al presidente \\ todos los meses.
Verónica \\ visita \\ el presidente \\ todos los meses.
Grammatical
Case Violation
“Veronica visits the president every month.”
(2)
a.
b.
La empresa \\ le dio \\ un aumento \\ al director \\ este año.
La empresa \\ le dio \\ un aumento \\ el director \\ este año.
Grammatical
Case Violation
“The corporation gave the director a raise this year.”
References
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006). Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 342.
Instituto Cervantes (2007). Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera: Nivel Superior (DELE), Madrid, Spain.
[online] http://diplomas.cervantes.es/docs/ficheros/200711160001_7_9.pdf (Accessed July 14, 2008).